"Robert A. Heinlein - If this goes on" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

He shrugged. ‚Oh, I can play the Devil’s advocate. I made the debate team at
the Point, remember? I’ll be a famous theologian someday-if the Grand
Inquisitor doesn’t get me first.’
‚Well . . . Look-you do think it’s right to stone the ungodly? Don’t you?’
He changed the subject abruptly. ‚Did you notice who cast the first stone?’ I
hadn’t and told him so; all I remembered was that it was a man in country
clothes, rather than a woman or a child.
‚It was Snotty Fasset.’ Zeb’s lip curled.
I recalled Fassett too well; he was two classes senior to me and had made
my plebe year something I want to forget. ‚So that’s how it was,’ I answered
slowly. ‚Zeb, I don’t think I could stomach intelligence work.’
‚Certainly not as an agent provocateur,’ he agreed. ‚Still, I suppose the
Council needs these incidents occasionally. These rumors about the Cabal
and all...’
I caught up this last remark. ‚Zeb, do you really think there is anything to this
Cabal? I can’t believe that there is any organized disloyalty to the Prophet.’
‚Well-there has certainly been some trouble out on the West Coast. Oh,
forget it; our job is to keep the watch here.’


Chapter 2

But we were not allowed to forget it; two days later the inner guard was
doubled. I did not see how there could be any real danger, as the Palace was
as strong a fortress as ever was built, with its lower recesses immune even to
fission bombs. Besides that, a person entering the Palace, even from the
Temple grounds, would be challenged and identified a dozen times before he
reached the Angel on guard outside the Prophet’s own quarters.
Nevertheless people in high places were getting jumpy; there must be
something to it.
But I was delighted to find that I had been assigned as Zebadiah’s partner.
Standing twice as many hours of guard was almost offset by having him to
talk with-for me at least. As for poor Zeb, I banged his ear endlessly through
the long night watches, talking about Judith and how unhappy I was with the
way things were at New Jerusalem. Finally he turned on me.
‚See here, Mr. Dumbjohn,’ he snapped, reverting to my plebe year
designation, ‚are you in love with her?’
I tried to hedge. I had not yet admitted to myself that my interest was more
than in her welfare. He cut me short.
‚You do or you don’t. Make up your mind. If you do, we’ll talk practical
matters. If you don’t, then shut up about her.’
I took a deep breath and took the plunge. ‚I guess I do, Zeb. It seems
impossible and I know it’s a sin, but there it is.’
‚All of that and folly, too. But there is no talking sense to you. Okay, so you
are in love with her. What next?’
‚Eh?’
‚What do you want to do? Marry her?’
I thought about it with such distress that I covered my face with my hands. ‚Of
course I do,’ I admitted. ‚But how can I?’
‚Precisely. You can’t. You can’t marry without transferring away from here;